The Story of an Evening
by YFWE
Summary: The story of a night on the town, and the consequences that follow.


**This is a purely experimental story that will probably not resonate with most. But for those to whom it does appeal, I hope you enjoy. For those who need a detailed plot description, check the end of the story. Note that this **_**is **_**in Jake's POV.**

**Also, hi. I'm YFWE. I used to write for this fandom a lot. Then real life happened. But I'm still alive, yo.**

**The Story of an Evening**

**YFWE**

It's Friday night, 9 p.m. to be exact. Trixie and Spud are heading out by now, no doubt. Off to the bevy of bars and clubs that line the main drag of the city. It's certain to be a raucous evening; after all, it's the first night during which spring has actually felt like spring.

At one point in your life, this was your element. Perhaps you were not the rowdiest of your circle, but you were certainly never indoors on a Friday night, as you are now. You had plenty of friends, plenty of places to visit, plenty of people and things to see.

You sigh and roll over once in your bed. You will not go out tonight; you haven't done so in a month at least. Despite the theory that conversing and interacting with human civilization would be beneficial, you remain stagnant. Your room is a black hole, illuminated only by outside light trespassing upon your third-story apartment. You can hear a growing din outside; the city's nightlife is waking up. You wish you had chosen an apartment more outside New York's boundaries – the temptation, and the memories, would not be as prevalent or as difficult to avoid.

The issue is that the memories are splendid. Briefly you enjoy thinking of them, recalling them. But enjoyment soon turns to depression, and then to dismay. To despair. To heartbreak.

_Knock, knock, knock_. Three knocks at the door to your bedroom. You sit up groggily, fleetingly wondering who could be in your one-bedroom apartment, and who had come looking for you. Perhaps it is your landlord, Daryl. You've been slightly behind on your rent this month. Things on the brain, you've told him.

But before you can answer the knocking, the door creaks open and the light switch is flipped on, illuminating your room in a manner that has been absent for many weeks. Two figures emerge from behind the now-open door.

You find yourself staring into the dark brown eyes of Spud. A green beanie is pulled over his mess of blond hair. He's managed to fit himself into some rather tight black jeans – commonplace for him these days, you recall – and dons a plaid shirt that hangs off his slender frame. He's smiling warmly. Trixie stands beside him, her dark curls bobbing wildly atop her head. She's leaned against Spud, the top of her head barely reaching his shoulder, and seems bewildered at first, but soon forms a grin as well.

"'Sup?" Spud asks simply. Normally you hate the word and the mere way he says it, but you let it slide. "Thought we'd find you here."

"What gave it away?" you ask sarcastically. Then: "how'd you get in?"

"You gave me a key, like, right when you moved in, dude." Spud walks over and sits at the foot of your bed. Trixie follows, but remains standing.

"Well, that's cool. A phone call would have sufficed, though."

"Tried that," says Spud, holding up his cell, at which you squint and notice at least five missed calls. Trixie follows suit, holding up her own phone. "We called twice from Nigel's house too," she adds.

You sigh dejectedly, sitting up in your bed for the first time since your friends arrived. Your gaze is narrowed from the sudden influx of light onto the premises, and while you're somewhat happy to see the couple, you had been hoping for a good night's sleep. "So," you say shortly. "To what do I owe this dubious pleasure?"

Spud and Trixie steal a glance at each other before turning back to you. "Dude," Spud starts, "when was the last time you went out on the weekend?"

"Dunno."

"Has it been, say, a month?

You shrug.

Spud sighs pitiably. "You do realize it's been over a month since she dumped you, right?" You don't respond.

"Don'tcha think maybe it's time you got back out there?" Trixie asks.

"Yeah, buddy," agrees Spud. "You were a legend before… what happened with her." He pauses. "And at least you actually went out and _did _something when you weren't busy being the American Dragon."

Your gaze does not meet your friends, instead finding a few shapely creases in your bedspread. You knew this moment was coming and had dreaded it as a result. Still… a part of you is somewhat glad. You know you couldn't have gone out alone, and maybe is the pick-me-up you need. A night on the town would be nice, as long as you had friends to help you through the evening.

Still, you decide to play hard to get. "I don't know…"

"Well, why? Why _don't _you know?" asks Trixie.

"It's just… I don't know if I'm ready to go back out there yet. I still need time to heal."

"It's. Been. A. Month."

"Still…"

Trixie shoots a concerned glance at Spud, who in turn rests his hand on your shoulder. "Look…" he says, "what Rose did to you sucks, but you have to move on sooner or later. A NewYork 20-something inside every weekend of the month? Even the dudes that hang out at Shake Shack every night aren't that sad… 'cause at least they're doing something with their lives." Noticing your sullenness and apparent inability to look him in the eye, he snaps his fingers once in front of you. You act startled, looking him in the eye. "Let us show you a good time tonight, alright?" he pitches. "Rudy's is having a happy hour all night long. We'd be stupid to miss it and so would you."

You open your mouth to reply, but are swept off your feet by Spud – barely, given his relative inability to even pick up Trixie on good days – and are set down by your dresser. "Meet us outside in five," he says, shuffling out the doorway with Trixie in tow. "We'll show you a good time. I promise."

Spud can say what he wants about Rudy's happy hour, which used to be one of your favorite weekend haunts, but tonight you're not so sold. The bar is packed with plenty of young and younger-minded folks, some of whom you recognize from your days at NYU. A band is sound-checking onstage, and from the sound and look of things, Pete, Jody and the rest of Hazel would be proud, with the musicians' religiously-donned plaid and grunge aesthetics. You smile, chuckling to yourself and thinking about the almost-overwhelming hipster-ness of the whole ordeal. But even after a subtle smile creeps onto your countenance, it disappears as quickly as it came. You and Rose used to poke fun at the New York hipster crowd all the time, sometimes setting up camp on a decrepit bench in Williamsburg and people-watching, laughing all the way. Good times. The familiar feeling of sickness that usually follows such memories is creeping up.

You are lurched out of this state of affairs when Spud and Trixie approach. They bring with them a pitcher of Pabst – or so you assume, since that's largely all Trixie will ever drink. Spud mutters something about going to get two more pitchers, and you notice Nigel hauling along another. He appears to have been at Rudy's for quite some time already, judging by his general intoxicated state. His red bangs – still such a color after all these years, despite your constant nagging – stick to his forehead as though he's been sweating enough to have filled the average person's yearly quota. The horn-rimmed glasses he now wears appear as though they've been bent at some point in the evening, as they hang somewhat crooked from his face.

"Heeere y'go mates," Nigel says, throwing another pitcher down on the table, its contents sloshing partly onto the nearby table which you have claimed. "Excited for Sparkletiger?"

"Never heard of them," you utter.

"Ah, they're great, mate, they're great. They really _get _it, y'know?" he decides to stare at you for a few moments, as if seeing you for the first time, and then heads back into the crowd of bargoers.

The band is about to begin playing, though the lead singer, a tall, blond-haired twig of a man who appears to be Bradford Cox's long-lost twin, seems as though he couldn't care less. Still, a number of patrons rush toward the stage. Trixie grabs the hand of Spud, who has already downed a glass of his ale and is at work pouring another. He glances toward you. "We're gonna go dance and check this out," he says. "You coming?"

You had never really gotten into the scene. Spud and Trixie (and, clearly, Nigel) had moved on from your hip hop roots of grade school years prior, but still you were not so keen. You would take a beat from Lupe over a hollow rocker from the Strokes anyday.

"Nah, I think I'll stick around back here," you say, leaning a hand against the table, another clutching a pint glass.

"Fine. Later, broseph," Spud sends you a quick smile before disappearing into the crowd. You hate when he calls you that.

The night wears on. You were always more of a mixed drinks person than a beer drinker, so following a glass or two of the golden liquid that sits upon your table, you retreat slightly, toward the bar itself. You push yourself between a pair of kids who seem to have taken advantage of the doorman neglecting to card 18-and-unders, reaching the bar finally and ordering a rum and coke. It's your favorite drink; you swore off sodas about a year ago, but when there's rum involved, you're powerless.

A few songs into Sparkletiger's set, a duo jumps onstage with the band, dancing wildly – perhaps too wildly without it seeming slightly for show. You shake your head, downing the last of your drink and ordering another. A haze has hit you, but you vow that you will certainly never get drunk enough to do something like that. You learned your lesson at the Atmosphere show in 2007.

Once the meager security decides that they've had enough with the couple's – a man and a woman, though you can't make out any features otherwise – antics, they are ushered off the stage. From a distance you can see the female whisper something into the male's ear, perhaps even nibbling upon it slightly, before heading toward the bar. You see the man smile and head in the direction of the bathrooms.

You don't know why, but your eyes continue to follow the woman as she comes closer. You can't get a clear view of her face just yet, but with her straight, shoulder-length blond hair, maroon dress down to her knees and sparkling diamond earrings, you find her somewhat attractive. Not that it will matter, of course. Still you stare at her fondly, as though she is a part of your memory, someone you've known for years and are seeing again for the first time in ages and remembering her beauty.

She finally comes into immediate view and glances up. You freeze. You know the face and curse the world and all that has to do with it. She is pretty, her soft face accentuated only slightly by a tiny, gleaming nose piercing. She sees you, and you know it's all over.

"Hey!"

You wince, wishing you hadn't been spotted. But the bar is mostly empty, the majority of patrons enjoying Sparkletiger's pained yowls about love and loss. It was bound to happen.

You put on the friendliest face you can muster, though you were never a good actor. "Rose," you stammer finally. "I-it's… been awhile!"

She proceeds to set down her drink – a mojito, you're sure – and embraces you. You feel her warmth encompassing your body – a familiar warmth. She doesn't hug you as tightly as she once would, but it's more than enough to send your mind into overdrive.

"It sure has," she says in what sounds like a whisper at first, but you assume it to be due to the din of the band. "Fancy seeing you here!"

"The same to you."

Rose steps back a space, smiling. You can tell that she's drunk, but only slightly. It's not as though you're in much of a position to be judging that sort of thing anyway. "So, how've you been?" she makes the first move.

"Oh… g-good," you manage, shrugging. "School."

She rolls her eyes. "Same. You almost finished? About to graduate?"

"As long as I don't fail my English class."

She nods, pushing her black strands out of her bright blue eyes. You stare into them for a moment, finding yourself transfixed and losing yourself within them.

"You won't. You were always a good writer," she says. "I guess I'm still on track to get outta here next fall. Thinking of doing graduate work at Colorado. I've heard they have a respectable med school."

"Right… yeah." You're distracted, and you know why.

"And you? How's your parents? Grandpa? Fu? Much dragon business lately?"

"No, not really…" you stammer. "World's quiet lately. And they're fine, thanks."

"What about job offers? Any labs wanting to whisk you away just yet? Not like you'll find anything here I bet, what with the unemployment…"

"Y-yeah." You envision peeling off that dress, as you did many months prior.

"You okay?"

You snap back into reality. "Um, yeah, sorry."

She studies you. You feel her gaze bore into your soul, and it seems as though you can do nothing to stop her. And you worry. You worry that she'll emerge with a clear understanding of how you feel in that moment. She'll know that you still care for her, and that you've become a recluse since she broke up with you a month ago, even if she claimed she wanted the breakup to be as painless as possible and that she wanted to remain friends – to which you, begrudgingly, agreed.

You curse many things in that moment. You curse Rose for ruining a perfectly good, six-year relationship. You curse her for committing to so many things, marriage included, and reneging on her promises. You curse Spud and Trixie for bringing you to Rudy's. You curse yourself for giving Spud a spare key so many months ago. You curse Sparkletiger for bringing everyone together on this bleak, bleak evening. You don't even find them that pleasing.

There's a tapping on your shoulder, a light one, a familiar one. Yet again you are pulled from your trance and lurched uncomfortably into the real world. "Wha…?" you stutter.

"I just asked if you were okay. You've gotten weird all of a sudden," says Rose matter-of-factly.

"I… haven't been out in a while," you admit. "I don't think I've touched alcohol in about a month."

You curse yourself again. _Oh, what a perfect thing to say, _you think. _Now she'll really be on to me._

Sure enough, she begins to shift in place rather uneasily. An awkward silence falls over your conversation like a blanket, though much of this is lost by the mid-tempo rocker emitting from the speakers. The lyrics are of the subject rekindling a forgotten romance. You decide you despise the song.

You make a last-ditch effort to regain lost ground. You ask a question, the answer to which you really don't want to know. "So, seeing anyone these days?"

"No…" she starts and your heart skips a beat, "but… I did meet someone while out last night. He's with me tonight, in fact…" she steals a glance toward the bathrooms.

"Ah."

"What about you?"

"Um…" you struggle to find the correct answer, or more so the _right _answer. You are not seeing anyone, and it's possibly been made quite obvious by your mannerisms. However, if you can save what little dignity you might possess….

"Eh, a couple possibilities here and there. Nothing… serious," you say. It's not the truth, but it certainly sounds better than it.

There is a flicker of hesitation in her eyes, and you notice it before she throws on a toothy grin. "Isn't that great?" she exclaims. "I'm happy for you."

You nod and then blurt out something you regret instantaneously. "But I wish they were you."

Unfortunately, that _is _the truth, and a hard one at that. You didn't want to admit it, but you're not sure for how long you could have avoided it either. Especially with the longtime object of your affections right smack in front of you.

It is her turn to wince, and again her gaze darts to the bathroom. "Um… right," she starts. "I should get going."

"Yeah…" you envision her, resting her head against your shoulder, as the two of you soar through the air on a return trip from Niagara Falls. You are in your dragon form. She is happy. You are happy. You cling to the memory, that happiness, for the remainder of the evening.

For what happens after that utterance is a blur. Rose insists that it was nice seeing you, and that she'll keep in touch (she won't). You exchange a brief embrace, one more curtailed than the last, and exchange goodbyes. You see her hurrying off toward the bathroom, where her guy friend from earlier is emerging, looking bemused. You recognize him finally, though you have not seen him in years, is Brad Morton. He asks her something, she shrugs it off, nodding her head in your direction. However, before he – a shorter, but muscular 20-something – can look in your direction, she turns his head down toward her and kisses him full on the mouth. A singular kiss then becomes many more, and eventually you must look away.

You don't know how you do it, but in mere minutes the pitchers of Pabst on the nearby table are completely empty. At least two more rum and cokes find their way into your system, and you even down the last of Rose's drink, which she left at the bar. It _was _a mojito. You hate mojitos. You hate women. You hate her.

Somewhere shortly thereafter, you stumble out of Rudy's and onto the street. You don't know what time it is, but you think it can't be much later than 11. Your vision is blurred, and you're not quite sure where you're headed. All you know is that you don't want to go back into that bar, or back to anywhere_ she _is.

Tears blind your eyes. Your steps become uneven as you sway to and fro. Your legs feel like jelly threatening to lose solidness at any second.

You're aware of the plethora of people surrounding you on a busy New York evening, but you don't care. There is an inferno building inside you about to let loose at any second, and you are both terrified and welcome it. Finally that inferno finds tangible reality as you unleash a brilliant flame from the pit of your stomach, exploding out from your mouth and into the night. You hear cries of terror, but you don't mind them. Your flame hits a nearby light pole, and you hear an explosion sound as the lightbulb within shatters and the pole falls to the ground.

A flame engulfs you and you're flying – but where, you do not know. Your eyesight is still blinded, and moments later you feel pain and hear a crunch as you connect with a brick wall. All is silent after. All is black.

You come to what seems like hours later, though it's more likely a few minutes. You are disoriented at first, heaving as you struggle to regain full consciousness. You're on another building's rooftop, one that sits against the brick wall into which you slammed. The chances of someone on the street level seeing you here are minimal. You breathe a sigh of relief, and, unable to express your rage through pyrotechnics any longer, begin to think.

From the moment she kissed Brad, this man that supposedly wasn't much more than some guy she met at another bar the night before, you realized she had done it with the intent of getting to you. She had to have known you would react in some way, and react you did. Perhaps she did it for your own good, for your well-being; after all, if you saw that she was very much into another man, maybe you would let her go much more easily. You hope fervently that this is the case, though you can't help but worry that she had done it as a showoff, as a way to crawl under your skin.

The tears in your eyes have turned to muffled sobs. You simply want to be alone, as you have been for the month prior, and as you imagine you will be for a month after. The task is getting home, but frankly, you're too drunk to figure out in which direction that would be.

The moments you spent with Rose were among the best of your life, and you continue to go back to the scene in the air, the scene in which she lays her head against your broad shoulder, nestled in the comfort of your large dragon frame, and the happiness that came from it. You long for that… you long for that which you cannot obtain. Your heart aches and aches for the splendors of yesteryear, enough that you cannot find the splendors and beauties of the present. You shouldn't have come out tonight. Shouldn't have come out.

After what seems like an eternity, three people approach you. Wiping the tears and sweat from your face, you look upward to find Spud, Trixie and Nigel standing there. There is concern in the former two's eyes; Nigel, meanwhile, appears more dazed than you, though his hands have a faint glow to them, indicating to you that he had used his magic to find you on the rooftop.

You struggle to sit upright, working to avoid their gaze. You are ashamed of what you've become, but you feel as though you can't help it. You worry you're destined to yearn for someone you will not get back. You shouldn't have come out tonight.

You regain your senses just in time to hear Nigel ask, indecorously,

"Mate, if you didn't like Sparkletiger, that's all you had to say."

**END**

**Okay, so, that's it. For those curious – this story is meant to take place about 6-7 years after the end of ADJL as we know it. The main characters are out of college but still living in NYC. Spud and Trixie have somehow become part of the city's vibrant younger crowd/hipster culture (I experienced this while interning there over the winter… great times). Trixie is not as "into" it, but she goes along with it for Spud. Jake, clearly, is not into it, haha.**

**I wrote this 1) because I had the plot idea and wanted to run with it, and 2) because I wanted to try a story written in the second-person POV. Let me tell you this, kids – it's not easy. But I did it, I guess. Not to say it's good, but it's sure as hell done.**

**There's still something hilarious to me about hipster Nigel. Just saying.**

**I have three unfinished fanfics in this fandom on which I plan to work here soon – "Switch," "The Dragon Chronicles," and "Sigh No More." If you're a fan of any of those, I hope to have something for you soon.**

**In the meantime – if this was a bit 'out there' for some, I apologize. I promise this isn't the way I usually like to write stories… like I said, an experiment.**

**Happy May, everyone! Missed ya.**

**-YFWE**


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